Right, stereotypes. In all honesty, I’m not really a fan. Which is ironic, seeing as I write for an organ which trades on sweeping generalisations and assumptions. Thing is though, while we tend to use our prejudices in a warm, loving way (don’t smirk, we do, whatever the PC overlords tell you), your average stereotype is, in reality, too easily proved wrong.
I, for instance, have, thanks to getting out in the world every now and then, met a Frenchman who’s not haughty. I’ve chatted with Americans who are neither obese nor living in a bunker surrounded by the kind of arsenal that would make your average African warlord jealous. The Aboriginals I’ve met since landing in Oz aren’t all stealing hubcabs and flying crate-loads of booze into remote townships and I’ve enjoyed the odd drink with people who think Allah is great. I’ve even met a nice South African.
Thing is, though, I’m yet to meet an Australian who doesn’t love a good barbecue.
Perhaps then, one of the many cultural insights I’ve picked up down under is that there actually is, after all, a stereotype that holds water. Another long held belief, then, has gone up in smoke alongside the proverbial shrimps on the antipodean barbie.
Personally, my first taste of Oz barbie culture came within hours of touching down at Perth International. Ever organised, our family home was waiting for us in the northern suburbs and the relatives who turned out to meet us on the day we finally left Blighty behind had let themselves in and organised a traditional welcome party.
Bleary eyed, agitated and wanting little more than a stiff drink and a week or two in bed, I found myself standing on the patio of our new house, stubby in hand, shaking hands with kin I’d only known previously by name and emailed pictures, in a social ballet centred around my shiny new ‘welcome to WA’ present. A barbecue.
But this was not the twenty-quid Homebase affair I’d been used to; the near-disposable piece of kit we’d rush out and buy on the oh-so-rare sunny West Country day that made al fresco food a possibility back home. Back there, barbecues were little more than an optimistic hope when the temperature briefly nudged above 19 degrees C. There’d be a mad dash to an industrial estate, a long, nervous wait in a queue of dozens of like-minded Englishmen then home to forlornly throw lighter fuel on the coals only to finally get them alight just as the British summer decided that four hours of good weather was more than enough for the unhappy inhabitants of that crowded isle. The meat would be cooked in the kitchen and the rickety barbecue would be dispatched to the shed to slowly rust next to last year’s version.
The barbie waiting for me on my Perth patio, however, was a different beast all together.
Glinting in the sun, ours was the size of a small car. Bedecked with knobs and dials, a suitcase-sized gas bottle hissing quietly at its rear, the barbie we’d been presented with was big enough to spit roast a small child, if that took your fancy.
As I made efforts to commit a stream of names to memory, various languid, tanned Australians piled huge slabs of meat, whole fish, spicy sausages and anything else that came to hand onto the sizzling behemoth.
Fair enough, you may think – you’ve gotta have food at a party – but I quickly realised that there was more to this ritual than met the eye. I’d come equipped with children and a head full of tales of life in a different hemisphere, but, while there was more than polite interest in both, the real star of this show was the barbecue itself.
Revellers gathered round it, nodding in approval. They ducked down, sucking air through their teeth in delight before discussing the piping, popping back up to throw in a compliment about the many and varied preparation surfaces my new acquisition offered. The wok attachment drew many an appreciative word.
And then, once convinced of the barbie’s worth, they would pat me on the back, put an arm around my shoulder and breathe something along the lines of, “that’s a fine piece of kit you’ve got there, mate.”
At which point, it struck me that it wasn’t a decade and a half of journalism that made me a man to be reckoned with in their eyes. Nor was it fruitful loins that had helped add to the world’s population two or three times. My conversational skill, natural ability at the poker table, the power of my second serve – none of this was the key to acceptance as an Australian male.
No, what counted was that I had a freaking big barbecue.
And for that, I’ll always be grateful to my wife’s grandparents for splashing out the thousand or so bucks they won at the bingo for my iconic piece of metal. Ex-pats themselves, with more than a quarter of a century in this hot, brown land, they had the insight to know what was needed to ensure a smooth transition from one culture to another. Their purchase was the equivalent of teaching me when to bow in Asia, when to wear long trousers in the heat of north Africa or when to shut up about 1966 in Glasgow. I quickly realised that understanding the fascination was immaterial, all I had to do was go through the motions of stroking my barbie’s sleek curves and sucking up the admiration while trying to make sure that no one ever noticed that, personally, I had no interest at all in standing over it in a comedy apron pushing bits of dead animal around with a pair of giant metal tongs.
And it was knowledge that has served me well – and often. It was barely a week before I was back around a barbie, this time in a professional rather than social environment. Reaching out to the Australian media for lucrative literary commissions, my wife and I found ourselves in West Perth for lunch with a magazine editor who held, for my other half at least, the pursestrings to a host of money-for-old-rope assignments.
I’d thought that this afternoon networking session would forego the barbecue, mainly because it was bucketing down. But, no, magazine mogul’s husband just pulled his barbie onto the patio and fired it up as the raindrops drummed against the tin roof. We all stood around it as he took ‘well done’ to never before imagined lengths and then trooped back indoors with our steaks to eat at the dining room table.
Another small culture shock, then, but an important one. Barbie two was to teach us that the sizzle of sausages across Western Australia is an event which breaches all cultural and class barriers. Yes, the majority are bawdy, shorts and thongs type of dos, but, as we were to learn on our first trip to the hallowed shores of Cottesloe, the great and the good like to chuck one on as well.
Cottesloe, if you’ve yet to dig into the cultural mores of Perth, is our new home’s Chelsea. Kensington, perhaps. But, alongside the likes of the beautifully monikered Peppermint Grove, Cottesloe is where the money is; where the exotic, attractive and successful migrate to. It’s all beach views and rambling, perfectly designed mansions, exquisite pools and top of the range 4x4s. And, of course, barbecues.
The wine at this latest bash was expensive; none of your six cleanskins for sixty bucks nonsense here. The conversation was low volume, a happy burble discussing manuscripts, screenplays, stock exchanges and political movements. There was a chap there who had Alan Carpenter’s ear, a woman who was up for a literary award, a couple of coves who could have played in any symphony orchestra in the world but had elected to ply their trade in Perth: an opera singer, a ballerina and a judge. The men wore expensive casual clothes, linen trousers, crisp white shirts, chunky, expensive watches. The women were all stick thin, immaculately coiffured, holding glasses of rosé in perfectly manicured hands. Everyone was drinking, but no one was drunk.
In the middle of this sophisticated meeting of Perth’s elite, however, was the barbecue, sizzling quietly away. The food, of course, was very different. Not for these high-achievers a bucket of frozen sausages and bin liner of baps. No, here the menu was as diverse and spectacular as the gathered guests. Next to the freshly cracked lobster and satay, I spotted Nigella’s sticky pork ribs. Yes, there was steak, but it was Porterhouse, with garlic butter. You could, though, forego the cow and head instead for the butterflied lamb with herbs and mint, or sample the sea bass, in foil with Pernod. Perhaps the kangaroo steaks were a touch post-ironic but, honestly, the spatchcock poussins and red snapper were divine.
And, of course, this snapshot of Australian sophistication had taken the barbecue experience to the next level. Alongside the barbie – which, I have to admit, was a fair bit bigger than mine, a fact I was surprised to realise annoyed me slightly – was a wonderful piece of al fresco eating one-upmanship. A tandoor. Staggeringly ethnic and traditional, exquisite kebabs cooked to perfection in its midst, providing not just a welcome addition to the menu but a pleasant little talking point once the discussion of emissions trading schemes had drawn to a close. One of those moments we will look back on as the slice of fortune that helped us make our way in our new home was my wife’s instant recognition of this exotic food-prep vessel. Foody that she is, she talked at length about marination techniques, the couple she’d interviewed back home who had masterminded the UK’s tandoor import industry and succulent dishes she’d had served to her in exotic parts of Asia. When her novel is finally finished, its publication will be, in part, due to its eloquent prose style and imaginative themes, but also thanks to her in depth knowledge of the world of the tandoor.
A lovely, sophisticated afternoon, then, with lovely sophisticated people. Still, I have to admit being pleased that my next dalliance with an Aussie BBQ was a more traditional affair, more in keeping with the aforementioned stereotype.
This one, if you were looking to increase your knowledge of the Australian vernacular, was closer to what is affectionately termed ‘bogan’. It’s a hard term to define, but think chav without the menace. Bogans embrace the Oz stereotype with an easy-going pride. Their drives are full of V8 utes, their heads are bedecked with baseball caps. The women wear short shorts and bikini tops regardless of their figure, footwear is thongs at most, bare feet most of the time. Their conversation flicks back to sport every five minutes, often in an attempt to convert their new-found Pom mates to AFL - however many times one points out that finding solace in the green lizard religion of David Icke is a more likely epiphany. The beer flows, bought en masse and constantly cooling in the outdoor drinks fridge. There’s an upping in the ante expletive-wise, the f-word long stripped of its taboo edge in this cultural sub-section. The drink flows more freely, the idea of drinking to be drunk much more enthusiastically embraced. There’s no set time for the bash to end: it’ll go on into the night, generally finishing with a skinny dip in the pool and an affirmation that you are, after all, their best freaking mate. Bogans, then, are a world away from the sauvignon blanc sipping socialites of Cottesloe, yet, there in the middle of them all stands the one true unifer of Australian society. The barbecue.
They’re everywhere. A constant in Australian life. One aspect of the culture which simply appals my wife is the communal park barbie. You’ll find them on beaches and in parks across Perth, robust little sheds with a barbecue inside them. The idea is that you, to again switch to the Australian way of saying things, rock up with your burgers and steaks, fire up the communal barbie and enjoy outdoor eating in a public arena.
My first impressions of the idea were good. Look at all those happy families, I thought, making the most of the facilities, enjoying life in the community. Ever the Virgo, however, my wife just saw the ick that must be left behind by hundreds of West Australians sharing the same grill. She has a point, I suppose, but you can’t disagree that the theory’s a good one.
So, do you get the point I’m making? Stereotypes may be a bad thing, but it’s a truism that barbecues are big business in Australia. No one’s left out. A vegetarian colleague of mine hankers after a big barbie as much as the next man. She admits that, although there’s plenty she can do with a courgette and a swede over the flaming coals, the key for her is the culture. She even confessed that she quite enjoyed cooking flesh on her newly bought, dining table-size kit, even if she had no interest in eating it afterwards. And would probably have a few choice words for anyone who did.
No surprise, then, that there’s a thriving industry out there to cater for this national obsession. Specialist chain BBQs-R-Us provides the country with just about every version of appliance you could imagine, from the starter size – what kind of man would want one of them, I wonder? – to the fully-plumbed in, luxury, stand back and gloat, leave the Joneses way behind affair. And the good times that continue to flow across the country thanks to the slow stripping of minerals from its vast, expansive backyard means that the top end units are the ones that are being snapped up. In a recent TV interview, Amanda Paterson, MD of BBQs-R-Us said that 90 per cent of all barbecues sold are the big ones, the shiny, knob-bedecked giants that I’m become increasingly unreasonably proud to own. If you pop into a branch of Barbecues Galore, you’ll see this borne out as you pace enviously around the shop floor. I found myself drawn to the Turbo Elite 5 Island, which seemed to be the natural progression up for me and my family, what with its corner units and built-in beer fridge.
Hang on. Did I just say that? Am I really contemplating trading up from my already too large barbecue? It seems that barbecue culture isn’t just a stereotype down under, it’s a contagious disease.
